


A Devil's Remorse

by RoseBloodCat



Series: Vampire Henry AU [7]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Vampire Henry AU, vampire henry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseBloodCat/pseuds/RoseBloodCat
Summary: A Not-Quite scrapped short that I loved too much to just throw away.





	A Devil's Remorse

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started writing this for a suggestion/prompt dropped into my box, but I’d had to scrap it when I realized I’d strayed so far from the idea that I couldn’t even connect them anymore.
> 
> But I’d fallen in love with the writing I had done that far in the short, so I couldn’t just delete it. So I kept it.
> 
> And kept coming back to work on it. Cleaning up the grammar. Tweaking the wording. Adding more to it.
> 
> And now?
> 
> I’ve finally finished it. So now I’m gonna share it.

Bendy…  Bendy didn’t know what to do.  He had always known there was something so terribly wrong with how Joey acted, with what had become of the studio and its staff.  He had known, deep down, that what Joey had done to the staff members who hadn’t escaped the studio was downright torturous, inhumane, horrible acts of cruelty that not a single one of them had deserved.

But it had just felt easier for the little devil to…  To go along with everything happening around him, instead of going against it.  To push down and ignore the little voice inside him that said he should have been fighting against it.  That he should have been arguing with Joey about what they were doing.  It had been _so much easier_ to ignore it.  To _join_ in the horrible acts.  To indulge in the cruelty befitting a demon like him.  (But he was a _cartoon._  He was meant to bring smiles and laughter to people!  Not…  Not _pain_ and _grief_ and _suffering_ for everyone who crossed his path)

Then…  Then Henry had come back.

Joey had told them over and over and over again that Henry was a _traitor._  That he’d abandoned them, abandoned the _studio,_ in their time of need.  That he’d had a hand in the studio falling apart.  But he’d come back, for no reason that Bendy knew of, and turned on the Machine again.

He had lashed out at the man when he’d approached the sealed room  (who had sealed the room off anyways?  Had it been one of the Lost Ones?),  and chased him through the flooding hallways of the animation department, trying to capture him and vent the rage _(and hurt and grief and **loneliness** )_ he’d felt for being locked away and forgotten in the old studio for so many years.

But in the Music Department, when Sammy had tried to sacrifice Henry, he had just…  He had felt something…   Some powerful feeling which made his heart clench and his breath quicken, and it drove him to attack Sammy instead.  He told himself it was anger from Sammy stealing his “prey”, that he would _dare_ go after _Bendy’s_ target and then acting like he should be rewarded for it.

(It _hadn’t_ been triggered by the little voice in his heart _screaming_ in fear when he’d realized that Henry was in danger, he told himself firmly.  That it hadn’t shouted that he needed to rescue his Creator from the madman that had once been the Studio’s music director.  He _didn’t_ care about Henry’s safety.   _He didn’t!_ )

He’d tried to spring an ambush on him afterward, only for the surprisingly fleet-footed old man to slip through his grasp once more and land in the safety of Boris’ surprisingly well protected little section of the studio.  Then, somehow, he had convinced the skittish wolf that he could get him out.

(Joey had always said they could never leave the studio.  That they couldn’t live without the machine.   _‘Then why did Joey turn it off if it was so important?’  The little voice in his head whispered_ )

He had watched their progression through the eyes of his many cutouts (the small voice in his head whispered that something wasn’t quite right about Henry, but he ignored it, _like always)_.  He watched as Henry and Boris carefully picked their way through the studio;  watched as Henry would immediately place himself between any ink monsters that appeared and the cartoon wolf that followed him;  watched how the man would soothe and comfort Boris whenever he became nervous or scared.

(It didn’t match.  It didn’t match what Joey had told them.  Henry wasn’t supposed to care about them.  He wasn’t supposed to show the gentle encouragement Bendy was seeing from him.  He had stopped caring about them, that was why he left…   _‘Was it?  Was that really the reason?’_ )

But the things that were different about Henry didn’t stop there.  The man would carefully creep around the various ink monsters that now filled the studio’s halls, choosing to avoid their notice instead of trying to fight them, with footsteps that were so quiet even Bendy’s carefully trained senses would lose track of him regularly.

When Bendy had tried to set up another ambush for the old animator, Boris had confronted him from within the safety of the elevator.

“Bendy, please…  Please stop this!  This-This isn’t right.  What Joey’s doing isn’t right!”  the wolf toon had pleaded, staring at the inky demon with teary eyes.  “Please Bendy, Henry’s a nice guy, he really is!  He doesn’t deserve what Joey’s done to the other people he’s called back.  Stop trying to hurt him!  I know he left, but that doesn’t make any of this okay!  Just…  Just let Henry leave this place, Ben.   _Please._ ”

Boris had been a very hopeful, silver-lining-finder kind of person when the studio had begun falling apart after they’d been brought to life, always trying to find the best in others.  But this time seemed different.  He wasn’t just saying it because he was afraid of what was happening around him.  Boris honestly wanted to _protect_ Henry from harm.  Boris never picked sides whenever there was a conflict going on between the toons.  He could never choose one friend over another, that was just how he was.  (That he had then spoke volumes)  He had been startled by the wolf’s words but had forced himself to ignore them.  Joey had told them Henry was a traitor, and that was how Bendy was going to treat him.

(But he’d moved away from the elevator and abandoned his plan to ambush Henry there anyways.  He wasn’t going to spare Henry, _really._  But he could at least spare Boris the pain of having to watch.)

Then he’d heard Alice tell Henry to start chopping up Bendy’s Cutouts, he’d been furious when he’d first heard, but he’d also heard something else.  Something that kept him from immediately chasing Henry down and attacking him for the offense.  Barely louder than a whisper, he’d heard Henry’s voice just before breaking the first cutout.

“I’m sorry, little buddy, but it looks like I’m not getting much of a choice about this…”

The quiet little comment had rattled him, just a bit.  Why would Henry apologize to the cutouts before breaking them?  Why would he feel the need to?  It just didn’t fit with everything Joey had told him!  He just…   _Didn’t understand._

When he had been wrenched from his own tremulous thoughts by the floor shaking crash of the elevator.  He’d raced to the sight as quickly as he could and found Henry laying in the shattered remains of the lift, far too still and quiet in the wreckage with Boris nowhere to be seen.

He’d found himself kneeling by the man ( _his Creator!_ ) frantically searching for his pulse, even going so far as to press the side of his head to Henry’s chest in hopes of hearing the tell-tale thumping of a human heart, only to find nothing.  He’d felt like the world had dropped out from under his feet, and everything had come crashing down around him.  The little voice he’d tried so hard to ignore over the years had screamed and wailed at what could only be his dead Creator laying before him.

What was he supposed to do?!  This was what Joey has wanted him to do…  Why did this feel so wrong?!  He wanted to yell, to cry, scream at the sheer _wrongness_ of it all.

Then the hag that had once been an angel started speaking over the speakers above him.

“ _*What’s wrong Ink Demon?  Mourning that traitor’s death?  I’m surprised.  With how hard you were working to kill him earlier, I wouldn’t have thought you cared about him.  But considering he was your Creator, I supposed it can be excused this once.  That poor, perfect, little Boris was certainly torn up about him.*_ ”  He heard her chuckle darkly.  Why would she say that?  Didn’t she recognize the wolf?  Couldn’t she tell that was the real Boris? That he wasn’t another flawed copy spat out by the machine or a recycled soul of an old employee?  “ _*Take your time Ink Demon, and I’ll help him…  forget about the human.*_ ”

Bendy felt his heart rate spike.  She wouldn’t…  She couldn’t!  Something burned in his chest.

Maybe…  Maybe it was time he stopped being the bad guy.  He carefully lifted Henry from the wreckage and laid him out on the floor, then turned in the direction of the Angel’s Lair.

He had to go rescue a wolf, and at least start to make things right again.

He never noticed the faint, almost invisible rise and fall of the man’s chest, or saw the faint twitch of fingers as he left.


End file.
